The story you write should be a "Flash Fiction" which is a complete story in one thousand or fewer words. Please post the story in the comment section, you will have to provide your name and an email address in order to be qualified to win or you can e-mail me at kmencher@ohlone.edu with your info. There is a problem with how many characters can post (only about 4,000) so if you cannot post it. E-mail it to me at kmencher@ohlone.edu

Winning flash fiction stories will be integrated in with an exhibit in San Francisco at ArtHaus Gallery (April 8th for the reception).

The show is called: Renovated Reputations: Paintings and Fiction inspired by Vintage Portrait Photographs

The exhibit will include a series of 20-40 paintings and mixed media works ranging in size from 8”x10” to 18”x24” framed with thrift store and vintage frames. In addition to the exhibited works ArtHaus is publishing catalogs signed by me and as many of the authors as possible.

Catalogs/books will consist of image of the painting with the text of the “flash story” surrounding the image. If I can get the authors to come to a book signing/party, authors would sign their pages for some of the printed stuff.

We're going to have a photobooth for the show for participantsto play with and vintage costumes.

Of course I'll send the authors free copies of the catalogs. I will announce the winners the day after the closing deadline for the competition. I'm planning on doing one flash fiction competition a week every Monday from now until April.

(If the conditions in the side bar are not to your liking, I'm totally flexible. Send me a contract that you like and I will mail it back to you. I just don't want to chase people for signatures when I publish the catalog!)

That’s my mom callin me ‘Baby Doll’. And she’s something the same as my pa, thinkin I’m a baby cos she still dresses me like one. Pink as Sookie’s bubblegum-tongue the dress I’m wearin today, and thin as air almost so you can see through it. Bubblegum pants underneath, too, with frothy lace trim.

‘Isn’t she a darlin?’ says my mom. And I knows she don’t mean me – she means Sookie, cos she has the cat limp in her arms, holdin her high like a cat can fly, and she’s touchin noses with the cat and speakin sugary like my pa does. ‘Isn’t she a darlin?’

I brings the beer, the cap pulled off. Now could I really do that if I was just six? My pa looks at me like he’s surprised. I smiles sweet as candy and he drinks from his beer, holds the bottle like he’s blowin a trumpet, and the beer slips down easy.

‘You did good, Honey Child,’ he says, wiping the back of his hand across his mouth, and belchin like a cow.

I did good! Like he thinks I’m six, he really does. Fourteen I am next birthday, though the way they cuts my hair I looks like Shirley Temple, and that’s the truth, and I bets they wishes sometimes that they’d thought to callin me Shirley. That would've been jes fine.

‘Isn’t she a darlin?’ And my mom is still talking ‘bout the cat.

I excuses myself, closing the door gentle behind me.

‘Missin you already, Honey Child,’ says my pa. And I thinks again that he’s stupid, thinks they’s both stupid.

I goes up stairs and climbs out of the window of my room and onto the flat roof where I can’t be seen from the porch. I can hear my mom and my pa talkin, the small hum of their voices, like they was just insects and I could squish ‘em if I wants. The flat roof still catches some of the sun and I knows Bobby Speirs will be at his window waitin. Regular as clock time, he is. Thinks I don’t see him watchin me. Thinks I don’t know. I peels off the baby doll dress and underneath I’m wearin a pink bra of my mom’s. ‘Course it’s too stupid big, but that don’t matter none. It’s all just a show for Bobby Speirs. I lights up a cigarette I stole from my stupid pa’s jacket pocket and I makes a show of blowing smoke rings into the air, leanin back, my lips poutin like I’m kissin Bobby Speirs, showin him what a kiss could be.

He writes poetry, see. Bobby Speirs writes poems down in a book with a black leather cover, the finest poems I ever read, and he keeps that book under a loose floorboard in the corner of his room. Don’t ask me how I knows. I jes does. And all his poems is about lovin me, truly. I read ‘em, every one. I’m like his muse, that’s what I thinks. Every poet’s gotta have a muse, right, and I’m Bobby Speirs’ muse.

I hears my stupid pa on the porch below, burpin again and laughin like he’s the one is six, and I hears my mom talkin stupid to Sookie the cat, like it’s the only friend that ever listens to what she has to say, and maybe it is. And I hates ‘em both for being stupid, hates'em, hates 'em, hates 'em. And I thinks one day I’m gonna kiss Bobby Speirs good, for real I am, and I’m gonna tell him I knows. I’m gonna say ‘I knows I is your muse, Bobby Speirs,’ and then, him and me, we’ll make out on that bed of his, and afterwards he could put that in his book if he likes and my stupid pa and my stupid mom won’t ever know._____________________________________________This was sent in by Patrick Nelson in jpg form. I think it's kind of interesting!

I'm a fine artist and an art historian. I'm
always looking for interesting art historical facts and ideas. I also
like reading and fiction so every once in a while I have fiction
contests where I give away original art.

I grew up in NYC but now in live the San Francisco Bay area. Where I make art, teach, curate, and blog.